EAP375/1/1/170

Description: This is a handmade envelope with three stationary envelopes with photos, engravings, and magazines' and newspapers' articles and clippings on Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear (1868-1942). He was a politician who came from one of the richest and most aristocratic families in Argentina. However, he chose to become an active politician in the first political party with a strong commitment with the lower-class sectors and democracy: the Unión Cívica Radical (hereafter UCR). He participated in the first revolutionary movements of the party and when the Law Saenz Peña imposed democracy with the universal, compulsory, and secret male suffrage, his friend Hipólito Yrigoyen became the first democratic president in the history of Argentina and was succeeded by Alvear. Despite his critique to Yrigoyen´s style of politics—known as Antipersonalism--, Alvear supported him until the 1930 coup when General Uriburu exiled him. Alvear returned, however, in 1933 when Yrigoyen passed away and assumed the leadership of his political party. In 1938, he was defeated in fraudulent presidential elections. This envelope also contains photos and documents of his love and then marriage to Portuguese opera singer Regina Paccini in whose arms he died in 1942. During his life he defended democracy and opposed the political autocratic regime of his social class and his presidency is known as one of the happiest moments in the history of Argentina. See, del Mármol, Federico, Marcelo T. de Alvear. Historia del Radicalismo in www.historia.radicales.org.ar/alvear.htm. For further information also consult: Lagos, Ovidio, La Pasión de un Aristócrata. Marcelo T. de Alvear y Regina Paccini, (Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores, 2010). Extent of original: Handmade envelope . Condition of original: Regular to bad condition.